Hacking wiiU hdd not being recognized anymore

[MO35AB]

so I came home after 2 weeks being away.
turned on the wiiU, it says the hdd is in wrong format and can't be used unless formated.
on windows I can see the hdd labeled "unallocated" only on partition manager, means it has no letter,
hhd type : Hitachi with USB switch using y cable.
I googled, some say just keep trying after few days, it might be back.
I have no save data backup for everything on it, help please :'(

 

[MO35AB]

anyone ?
anyway I can pull out save from the hdd, it's still working.

 

[urherenow]

in-between did you disconnect it? I did once and figured out that if you plug it back in to the other port (as in, not the one it was in when you formatted it for WiiU) it won't be recognized. In that case, power down, swap ports, and it should be good to go when you reboot.

 

[MO35AB]

I ll try all possibilities, let's hope it'll work .

 

[wicksand420]

there is a windows app that can explore your wii u formatted hdd, I forgot the name of it, but its on this site somewhere.

 

[MO35AB]

woooooooow !!!

there is a windows app that can explore your wii u formatted hdd, I forgot the name of it, but its on this site somewhere.

 

[wicksand420]

Here it is, I downloaded it but didn't use it yet, i was trying to figure out the page i got it from, but cant find it. Ifi find the post I'll let you know.

I found the github page, get it from here, the instructions are there aswell.

https://github.com/koolkdev/wfslib

 

[MO35AB]

thanks man !!
any idea of how I import save and restore it using this app ?

 

[wicksand420]

thanks man !!
any idea of how I import save and restore it using this app ?

I'm not sure, I haven't tested it.Its a command line program, so id imagine you would have to figure out what directory your saves are in and tell it to dump them from there, this would be your last resort though, so hopefully we can figure a easy way to do it before resorting to this.

 

[MO35AB]

in-between did you disconnect it? I did once and figured out that if you plug it back in to the other port (as in, not the one it was in when you formatted it for WiiU) it won't be recognized. In that case, power down, swap ports, and it should be good to go when you reboot.

i tried every possibility, didn't work.

 

[wicksand420]

i tried every possibility, didn't work.

what do you use, haxchi, cbhc, web exploit, mocha?

 

[MO35AB]

what do you use, haxchi, cbhc, web exploit, mocha?

Wii U EUR 5.5.2
webexploit / sleepii hax.

 

[wicksand420]

when you turn on your console, what exactly does it say about your hdd?

 

[MO35AB]

Here it is, I downloaded it but didn't use it yet, i was trying to figure out the page i got it from, but cant find it. Ifi find the post I'll let you know.

I found the github page, get it from here, the instructions are there aswell.

https://github.com/koolkdev/wfslib

it seems like a WBFS library, i can't manage to compile anything, always "missing "boost/filesystem.hpp".
using debian 8.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

after i chose my mii profile, it says:

"you have connected a USB storage device that has not been set up for use with this console.
do you want to format the device so that it can be used with this console?
with two choices: cancel or format

please note that this will delete all data currently saved to the USB storage device."

 

[MO35AB]

i was checking this : https://gbatemp.net/threads/view-wii-u-partition-on-pc.416659/

it seems the solution to my problem.
@wicksand420
anyidea ?

 

[wicksand420]

i was checking this : https://gbatemp.net/threads/view-wii-u-partition-on-pc.416659/

it seems the solution to my problem.
@wicksand420
anyidea ?

cyan is very knowledgeable, he should be able to help you, but you might have to wait for a while, sometimes it takes him a day or two to answer back.

 

[Sumea]

I would bet your drive has somehow corrupted. It might have even faulted which is of course, bad, sad but possibly true.
especially if swapping USB port, USB cable, and powering the drive off and on do not do tricks to it.

Be always careful connecting Wii U drives to PC as at least windows and possibly linux may want to fuck it's file system up which will end up in sad times as well. (just say no if PC wants you to do anything to it)

 

[MO35AB]

I would bet your drive has somehow corrupted. It might have even faulted which is of course, bad, sad but possibly true.
especially if swapping USB port, USB cable, and powering the drive off and on do not do tricks to it.

Be always careful connecting Wii U drives to PC as at least windows and possibly linux may want to fuck it's file system up which will end up in sad times as well. (just say no if PC wants you to do anything to it)

OK
for now i'm running a testdisk utility Analyse,
if anything is wrong i ll know,
later i ll use dd to make a copy for the whole 500 gb,
meanwhile i ll wait for @Cyan
thank you both @Sumea @urherenow & @wicksand420
stay tuned

 

[Cyan]

here is the official thread where you can ask the author if you need help using that tool :
https://gbatemp.net/threads/wfsdump-pc-util-for-dumping-wfs-devices-wiiu-file-system.478480/

I'd suggest first to try that tool and see if it can access the drive's content.
if not, make a backup (500GB is a lot, maybe you can backup the starting sectors only, but it's safer to save it fully)
if it's a partition definition issue, you can probably fix it.
if it's a file system issue, you can't fix it, and doing backup if possible is all you can do, then format it and restore saves later.

 

[MO35AB]

OK , i'll start by making a 500 gb dd tool backup.
then i ll investigate that tool "wfsdump pc util"
then we talk about the other 2 possibilities :

-Partition difinition issue.
-File system issue.